Misconceptions with Mom

Final Thoughts

After taking this course and rereading my first post about insects, I think my fascination with insects has grown; however, I am also a little more paranoid about insects being in my house. I don’t know if it is coincidence or if my research on insects has lured them into my apartment, but this final week of class I have come in contact with a cockroach in my shower and a baby spider on my pillow. Needless to say, my fascination with insects has not propelled me to pick up or become immune to these creatures in my living space. On the other hand, I have gone out of my way and have greatly enjoy observing these insects in their NATURAL habitat. I would have continued running around the lake without knowing about the millions of cattail larvae I was passing by. I would have continued to think of trees in the winter as bare and would have missed the silk moth cocoons. I cannot even begin to explain how excited I am about the baby mantis that hopefully will be hatching shortly. I would have never been so knowledgeable on the common misconceptions having to do with the earworm, cockroaches, and mantis. I could have finished this course without knowing all the insects I consume, but now that I have done some research I cannot believe the amount of information out there; I would have never known about this topic without this class. One of the main focuses of this class was overwintering. I had never before asked myself how do insects survive the cold winter. I think this class along with the books we read really stressed the importance of understanding the world around me. I was naive to think insects just go about their life during the winter as they do in the summer. Of course, they need shelter and warmth just like I do. In one of the areas, pinning, in this class I gained even more respect for researchers. This respect was gained was when I tried to pin the moths. Their wings were so delicate and the needles were so pointy. It took me a good two hours to pin three moths and the pinning was certainly not up to par. After researching all my insects, I realized many different species and types of insects there are. When you a read a fact in a book saying something like “there are over 4,000 different species”, you underestimate all the time and details that went into finding and researching those species. When you start researching online, you cannot imagine how hard it must have been for scientists to find and publish this information about these different species because you have trouble finding the ONE species you are looking for. The search for these insects is rewarding in two ways though, you are ecstatic when you find your species you have been looking for and you learn even more about other species that you would have never known. All in all, this class has taught me many new things I never would have suspected and cleared up many things I had previously known. 

Eating Insects

WOW. My mind was officially blown by those two short articles posted on moodle. I had no idea people ate insects other than on the show fear factor. In the "Earwigs Tail", the chapter, the yogurt beetle, was when I first learn that "some of our favorite food contain insect extract," said Berenbaum. Berenbaum commented on the claim, "the food colorants cochineal and carmine are made from ground beetles." I was hoping she would prove this misconception false. Unfortunately, she just cleared up the misconception by naming the real source of food colorants, which is a scale insect, Dactylopius coccus.  Berenbaum also provided me with the lovely fact that the shinny coating on candies, pills, and capsules are derived from the resinous secretions of Kerria lacca, the lac bug. A fun fact I found on a renovation website is: it takes about 100,000 lac bugs to make 500 g of shellac flakes. http://laughingsunrenovations.wordpress.com/2010/05/18/how-little-bug-bodies-give-trim-that-warm-historic-look/

photo of a lac bug from laughing sun renovations

While reading the article by Mott, I could not believe that half the people in the world eat a variety of bugs. I really want to go see a movie in South Africa because I don't think eating ants would be as bad as eating a cicada. 

However, the comment, "It's estimated that the average human eats one pound (half a kilogram) of insects each year unintentionally," said by Lisa Monachelli, was when I started getting nervous. It was then when I realized my outlook on life was changed forever. I also want to have a chat with the FDA after reading this… 

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) also allows certain levels of natural or unavoidable defects in foods, as long as they doesn't pose a health risk.For example, chocolate can have up to 60 insect fragments per 100 grams, tomato sauce can contain 30 fly eggs per 100 grams, and peanut butter can have 30 insect fragments per 100 grams (3.5 ounces), according to the FDA. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/04/0416_040416_eatingcicadas.html

What I don't understand is how these insects are so resilient. I feel like the act of making peanut butter is not a gentle process. When I hear fly eggs I question if the author means these eggs are still alive or dead and just decaying in my tomato sauce? My chocolate usually looks so rich and smooth and beautiful. To find out it has insect fragments is so foreign to me. When I searched this topic, I came across a wiki site that provided the percent of "insect filth" in certain foods. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Food_Defect_Action_Levels

I am still not sure what the definition of an insect fragment is but while searching so more I found this interesting recipe. 

110g high-quality dark chocolate

20 pieces crystallised ginger
20 dry-roasted crickets

Line a plate with parchment paper. Break the chocolate into pieces and put in a microwave-safe bowl. Heat for 30 seconds at 50% power, remove, stir, and continue cooking at 50% power in 10-second increments, stirring after each burst, until the chocolate is melted.

Take a piece of ginger, hold a cricket alongside it and dip the bottom half in melted chocolate. Let the excess drip away. Place each chocolate-dipped ginger and cricket duo on the prepared plate and leave in the fridge until the chocolate sets. http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2010/nov/13/grubs-up-eating-insects

Anyway, I think the fact that I just took a 30 minute shower because before getting into the shower I saw a cockroach run down the drain, so I kept my eyes on the drain the whole shower, making it hard to wash and rinse me hair in a timely manor. I don't think I am going to be able to switch my diet over to insects no matter how much more eco friendly it is. That is not saying I wouldn't be totally against trying some of these insects, but I don't think I would chose any of them for my next meal. 

The rest of Evans

This is kinda embarrassing but here it is!

Ruffner Mountain

Today, Tuesday January 14, 2014, we ventured to Ruffner Mountain. (http://ruffnermountain.org) Here we found many galls and some beetle eggs. We also saw a city overlook and visited a cave made out of limestone rock (See pictures below).

I found two different types of galls. Both were ball galls, but they were found on different plants and were different sizes. The three larger ball galls in the picture above could be a gall of the fruit fly, Eurosta solidaginis. These galls are found on a plant called Goldenrod. There is one fly in each of these galls and sometimes downy woodpeckers and chickadees break open these galls and eat them. There are also some wasps that can get into these galls and eat the inside as well. The inside of these galls are shown in the last picture above. http://bugtracks.wordpress.com/2011/05/01/goldenrod-ball-galls/
This is a really good website talking about the different types of galls. http://http-server.carleton.ca/~kbstorey/insects.htm

The smaller ball gall shown in the first picture is a hackberry gall. I am still trying to figure out more about these and will put the information in my collection paper. But, what I found so far, and I think I am right, but the insects inside these galls were adult hackberry gall psyllids. Another name is "hackberry nipple gall maker". Under magnification, they look like miniature cicadas. Normally, they overwinter under the bark of trees, but psyllids don't distinguish between "good" and "bad" overwintering locations so they also squeeze into cracks and crevices around windows, doors and siding. http://lancaster.unl.edu/pest/resources/hackberrypsyllids.shtml

The lone stick from a Hickory tree in the picture actually has a beetle egg on it. This beetle, commonly called the long horned beetle, lays their eggs on the branch of a Hickory tree and chews on the branch just enough to let the branch hang from the tree, soon to fall. The eggs hatch in about three weeks and the larvae eat on the branch. In late summer, the larvae pupate and two weeks later emerge as adults. Twig girdler is in the insect order Coleoptera (beetles), the family Cerambycidae (longhorned beetles) and the species is Oncideres cingulata.

Misconceptions

I picked the chapter, The Mate-eating Mantis, from the book, "The Earwig's Tail" by Berenbaum. I remember as a little girl being told something about the mating ritual of preying mantises. When I started reading this chapter, the familiar memory of female preying mantises eating their spouse resurfaced in my mind. I am also very excited about my preying mantises' cocoon. I have been doing research on these insects since I found this cocoon and so decided to chose this chapter as my blog post. 

The misconcention in this chapter is the female praying mantis kills and eats her partner usually devouring the head first. However, Berenbaum states that this isn't true, at least in the vast majority of cases. There are 2,000 species of mantids in the world and the phenomenon has been reported in only a tiny handful of them. And of the most reported cases, the sexual cannibalism has been observed in captive specimens and was likely a laboratory artifact. Berenbaum suggests that these mantids that exacuted cannibalism were most likely chronically hungry or malnourished. 

Berenbaum thinks this myth was started because it was documented by extremely eloquent writers in high-profile places. It was also published in Science, the premier scientific journal of the era and was written by Leland Ossian Howard, the future chief entomologist of the U.S.  Department of Agriculture. He had broughten a male mantis to a female mantis of his friends and observed the female bit off how left tarsus, consumed the tibia and femur, and then his left eye. The male continued to try to mate through this action and finally did the deed but after his leg and thorax was eaten as well. 

There is a common act of head removal in male mantis that leads to genitalic torsion on both sexes mantis. Reflexive erections can be induced in human patients subjected to spinal block or some kinds of brain lesions. Roeder does seem to think that removal of the head may free up inhibitions from the principle nerve bundle in the head that inhibit signals to the abdomen and thus, the twisted genitalia during decapitation can be filliped around and engaged into the female. There are also studies that suggest a male seeing a female eating her fill is a "turn on" and a male will move six times faster toward such female. Also males of Tenodera ardifolia are significantly less likely to court hungry females. 

What I gathered from this chapter is preying mantises do sometimes eat the head of their mate; however, this happens in captivity more than in their natural environment. And this behavior may help benefit the males reproductive rate by promoting intact genitalia. 

Other female insects indulge on their mates as well. We read in the other book about the male speckled cockroach (shown below). This male roach produces a phermomone called "seducin"in the glands on his back that the female licks while he plans his approach. 

photo cred by wiki

We also read about sagebrush crickets. These females eat the hind wings of their mates and lick the blood that flows from the wounds they inflict. 

Fun facts:

These majestic insects are sometimes difficult to locate because of the awesome camouflaging technique they have. They make use of their coloration to blend in perfectly with leaves and stems, even swaying their bodies in the wind like the leaves.http://www.factzoo.com/insects/praying-mantis-devout-stealth-fearsome-hunter.html

The mating season in temperate climates typically begins in autumn. The female then lays between 10 and 400 eggs, depending on the species. s in related insect groups, mantises go through three stages of metamorphosis: egg, nymph, and adult. The nymph and adult insect are structurally quite similar, except that the nymph is smaller and has no wings or functional genitalia.In tropical species, the natural lifespan of a mantis in the wild is about 10–12 months, but some species kept in captivity have been sustained for 14 months. In colder areas, females die during the winter. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mantis 

Class on Monday January 13, 2014

Today we covered many important and intersting topics ranging from chapters 4-9 in the book, "Life on a Little Known Planet"by Evans. Some of the things I learned are stated and explained below.

A myth that Dr. Van Zandt was told as a child was that dragonflies can sew your mouth shut. We, as a class, agreed that this was pretty terrifying and we were all very glad it was only a myth. We also concluded that dragonflies have eyes characteristics like that of predators and prey. We thought about some common predators like, owls and tigers and how they have eyes looking straight on. On the other hand, prey like, rabbits and mice have eyes on the side of their head. Dragonflies have eyes that are big and round and can see in all directions. There was a interesting experiment that we talked about in some detail involving the color of dragonflies. It was tested and shown that dragonflies which were painted black could not flash the natural white abdomen, which signals strength and confidence, and are more often killed and attacked by dragonflies that do have white on their abdomen to flash to a competitor. Another popular topic, was the act of propelling through water as a result of water leaving the anus in a jet like motion. The fact I found most terrifying was the dragonflies that once roamed the earth in the dinosaur age had a three footlong wingspan and the larvae was a a foot long. A link of a cool video of a dragonfly larvae eating a mosquito larvae is shown below. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MyL0a1JpvQ

The most interesting fact to me about crickets was the fact that species are temperature sensitive. At different temperatures, different spcies sing their mating song. Another topic of the class, was the fact that some female crickets chew on the front wings of males while mating, which disables the effectiveness of the male's chirp.  My favorite part of the class was when Bethany reminded me about the scene in Mulan with the cricket. The whole time I was reading the chapter I had the image of a cricket in a small cage and I couldn't remember where I had pulled that memory from. This is the link to the scene. I really want to watch this movie now. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjvHcXjAPxI

The fireflies chapter was a favorite of mine and after class I looked up some more information. Sadly, I couldn't find any pictures showing the light tour in New Zealand but I did find some information on the fireflies on Smoky Mountain. "Synchronous fireflies (Photinus carolinus) are one of at least 19 species of fireflies that live in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. They are the only species in America whose individuals can synchronize their flashing light patterns." http://www.nps.gov/grsm/naturescience/fireflies.htm
Here is a video of what it may look like, except everyone says it is better in person.
The last fact we learned was fireflies are not flies they are beetles.

The only thing I found interesting in the butterfly chapter was the mimicry and I already knew about this.

I did my "interesting insect blog post" on bedbugs so that only leaves flies to talk about. The fastest insects are flies. Flies unlike bedbugs can carry diseases. An interesting fact Dr. Van Zandt told us about mosquitos is they can tell how old their partner is by observing their wing sound. Dr. Van Zandt also kindly (not) introduced us to Botflies. They are many nasty pictures of these, but the way they are placed into human is interesting. These flies catch mosquitos in mid air and lay they eggs on them. The mosquitos then bite the human and these eggs are transferred into the humans skin. If one takes a shower soon after the bite, usually the human gets off with no harm. However, if not the end result is not pretty.